Lawmakers Chastise Union for Not Moving Forward on H.G.H. Testing

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers vented its frustration on Wednesday at the N.F.L. players union for not yet agreeing to put into effect a test for human growth hormone nearly two seasons after promising to do so.

Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican who is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Elijah Cummings, the panel’s ranking Democrat, said the players union’s longstanding efforts to question the science behind the H.G.H. test were simply a way to “run out the clock” and avoid honoring its agreement with the league.

They said that the union had reneged on a deal it had made with lawmakers last year to allow blood to be drawn from its players. That blood would have been retroactively tested once screening for H.G.H. was in place.

“There comes a point in time where the players need to agree to something,” Cummings said after a hearing about the science behind growth hormone testing. “It seems like excuse after excuse is being presented and the major excuse has been the science.”

He said he hoped players realized “how incredibly ridiculous” it looked that they were not being tested for H.G.H.

Issa said the players were not the ones resisting. “We’re seeing a few lawyers stand up on an unfounded technicality,” he said.

Issa and Cummings, the leaders of the committee, which also investigated steroid use in baseball, said they would hold more hearings on the issue and would call the N.F.L. and the players union to testify if the league did not begin testing soon. If there is still an impasse, individual players could be called to testify.

The league and the union had a conditional agreement to put H.G.H. testing in place when they signed a collective bargaining agreement before the 2011 season. Since then, the union has balked, refusing to move ahead before it is satisfied that the test will not produce false positives.

Photo

The Hall of Famer Dick Butkus, center, told a House committee that a majority of players support human growth hormone testing.Credit
Evan Vucci/Associated Press

George Atallah, the union’s spokesman who was at the hearing but did not testify, said the organization was trying to protect its constituents’ due process rights. He insisted the union never agreed to subject its players to any blood draws, as the committee leaders said, and that “there were two different recollections on what took place in that meeting” with those lawmakers last fall.

The growth hormone test, used by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2004, measures a ratio of the form of H.G.H found in the synthetic version of the drug to other forms of H.G.H. that naturally occur in the body.

The union has said the threshold used to determine a positive test might be higher for N.F.L. players than it is for other athletes, and called for a population study to ensure a proper threshold. Nearly a year ago, the league agreed to perform one.

“We are waiting for the N.F.L. to produce us a doctor that they believe would help us oversee the study,” Atallah said. “We’re waiting to hear back from them so we can move forward.”

Adolpho Birch, who runs the N.F.L.’s drug-testing program, said that the league had given the union five proposals for the study since last February, but that the union did not accept them. He claimed that the union’s reluctance was “more a political issue than it is science.”

“It’s frustrating,” Birch said of the union’s giving no credence to scientific experts who said the test was valid.

One of those experts, Larry Bowers, the chief science officer at the United States Anti-Doping Agency, testified Wednesday that the test has been given nearly 13,000 times, with 11 athletes testing positive.

Eight of them later admitted to using the drug, he said, while three still have open cases.

“The chances of an athlete who has not used synthetic growth hormone testing positive are comparable to the chance of that same athlete being struck by lightning during his or her lifetime,” he said, adding that the only people questioning the test “are lawyers, not scientists.”

Dick Butkus, the Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker, who educates children about the dangers of performance-enhancing drug use, told the committee that a majority of the players want to be tested for the drug, which is said to increase lean body mass, aid in recovery and improve stamina.

“Nobody wants to be playing and have the shadow over him, well did he or didn’t he take the juice?” Butkus said. “So why it’s held up, I don’t know.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 13, 2012, on page B17 of the New York edition with the headline: Lawmakers Chastise Union for Not Moving Forward on H.G.H. Testing. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe